Kiev Ukraine Former St Sophia's Seminary

overview

St Sophia's Seminary was built in Kiev city 1764-1767 to the designs of Mikhail Yurasov and Filip Popov, this now houses the Central Archive and Museum of Literature and Art of the Ukraine. The elongated two-storeyed building (107 m long) has three doors, the side ones being placed in polygonal ressauts.

The pilasters on the walls have freely-treated Ionic capitals. At the top there is a compound cornice and a curb roof. The windows have platbands and arc-shaped hood-mouldings. The building was originally intended as a block of cells, and when St Sophia's Monastery was closed down in 1786 it was taken over by the seminary.

In 1825 single-storeyed brick porches with Doric columns were built in front of the polygonal ressauts. The building shows the influence of the notable Kiev architect Ivan Grigorovich-Barsky, with his characteristically unassuming decoration and the meagreness or even total absence of stucco-work. Here we can already sense the change of style in which the creative reworking of the classical order becomes the leading motif.

The Southern gate tower, judging by its style and the absence of stucco decoration, was built in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. The second tier may have been built somewhat later. The tower has two tiers and is crowned with a cupola and a short spire; the internal tripartite division of the facades is marked by pilasters between which are placed niches with triangular pediments.

The details - pilasters, niches, cornices, half-columns, and platbands - are done in brick. The tower is built in the Ukrainian Baroque style and harmonizes well with the cathedral.